The Secret Society of the Flute Key
by joolay
Summary: Four friends and one "secret society" that holds them together. Includes a water bottle named Murphy, a "squirrel" that lives in the bush, and much more! Embark on an adventure with 4 girls that you will never forget.
1. The Adventure Begins

Secret Society of The Flute Key

Okay, so maybe putting blue ink on the mouthpiece of Clara's trumpet, resulting her to have a blue ring around her mouth for the rest of the day was a bad idea; but it was freaking hilarious to me, anyway. It was the first day of band camp. I had been in the marching band for three years already and was ready to enjoy my fourth. Clara didn't talk to me for about ten minutes, but being best friends, eventually she gave in and stopped being mad. She always forgave me.

We were in the band room waiting to head outside for drills. Clara and I took turns giving nick names to all the freshmen and it turned out to be an interesting way of passing the time.

"Helium Lips." Clara whispered, indicating a red headed flute player with the biggest lips I had ever seen. Her bottom lip wiggled when she talked, and I thought it was going to bounce up and break her nose.

"Okay everyone, we're about to go outside for drills. First I want to talk to you all about our season this year." Faja stood looking wise and sage on his podium. All the seniors called him Faja because he was like a father to us: we had known him for three and for some of us four years. He looked much older and his brown beard was peppered with gray.

"We have a great collaboration of music picked out for you guys this year. What do you think about Winnie The Pooh?" There was silence as we all took in those words. "Muah ha, just kiddin'! What do you guys think about Metallica?!" There was an uproar and several senior guys stood up and began jumping on their toes as if they had springs on the bottom of their feet.

"You're the man, Daddio!" Jeb, one of our two snare drum players ( he had a twin ), always called Faja "daddio".

"I knew you all would like it. Our opener is 'Back in Black.' …Amy, could you bring out the uniform?" Our student teacher who was almost as tall as my dad ( who is six foot four ) hurried off to the uniform room, only to return with a uniform bag in her hands. She handed it to Faja.

"Tell me what you think, this is our uniform for this year." Faja slowly unzipped the bag. I was anxious: one of my favorite things about band was that we got to have a new uniform every year and keep them. I had my last three hanging lovingly in my closet. ..The bag came off.

Everyone erupted in screams and applause. I was especially happy because my signature colors were red and black; I was into the whole "rebel" thing. Our uniforms had black pants with a red skull on one of the bottom legs. The jackets were red with a black tie. I had never seen a uniform with a tie before. I decided I didn't care as long as it _had _a tie on it. Me and Clara exchanged excited and amused looks.

--

The whole band, which consisted of about two-hundred kids, ( most of them were freshmen ) headed outside to start drill practice. I was ready to laugh at all the puny freshmen who didn't know how to march. Last year we had a guy trying to march and it looked like he was break dancing.

"I see you have your water bottle, Shea." Clara commented as we made our way to the football field. I smiled and started to stroke it.

"Yep- it's still lucky and has been since the eighth grade. His name is still Murphy."

"What kind of name is 'Murphy' for a water bottle?

"A good one. He likes it. He says it suits him nicely." I kissed 'Murphy' then took a swig of water from his face. "Ah."

"Oh Shea. Why did I ever befriend you?" Clara patted me on the head.

"Look!" I gasped and pointed with my pinky finger ( I always used my pinky finger. It was just one of my many quirks. ). "Do you see what I see?" Clara squinted in the direction of my pinky.

"You mean two hamburger buns?" Ms.Dillard was bent over. She was the middle school's band director and a bit on the heavy side. She came to camp to help instruct. I remember having her in middle school; Clara and I made up a theme song for her and we'd sing it under our breath every time she'd walk by. We pretty much despised her.

"Ew, yeah, well that's a sight but it's not the one I'm talking about." I continued. "Who does that look like to you?" I kept my pinky finger in a locked and loaded position. Clara put her hand over her eyes to block the sun and squinted.

"What?"

"The girl in the black shirt and converses."

"Hey, she kind of looks like Breathmint." ( We always called Lacy 'Breathmint" because her breath was always minty fresh ).

"My point exactly. Should we go talk to her?" I grabbed Clara's arm and with Murphy in the other hand, started in a run.

"Wait Shea don't run so fast! You know running gives me rashes!"

We skidded to a stop in front of the Breathmint look-alike. She stared at us with one eyebrow raised. Clara, panting, introduced us. "Hey..phew..my name is..huff..Clara..and this..ah..is Shea." Clara collapsed to the ground and laid there at our feet. I gave Shea a little kick and then turned my attention to the new girl.

"Do you have a sister named Lacy?"

"Breathmint?"

"Good ole Breathmint. Are you her sister or something because you look just like her. I know she has a younger sister because she always complained about her and ..there was this one time..it's pretty funny actually.." I chuckled. "..her younger sister had to wear rubber pants to bed because.." I stopped talking because the girl was staring at me open-mouthed. I shut my mouth.

"The rubber pants were mine, yeah. My name's Sarah." She didn't look to friendly anymore.

"I'm going to call you Rubber." I said simply, then bent down to help Clara to her feet. I noticed Clara had tied my shoe laces together. "Darn you Clara and your shoe-knotting ways."

Rubber stared at the two of us. "You two are..interesting."

"This is Murphy." I held out my water bottle to her. Before Rubber could comment on my odd-water-bottle-naming-ways, Faja blew his whistle which meant get into drill block. It was time to march.


	2. Water Break

"The Space That's In-between Insane And Insecure

Oh Therapy, Can You Please Fill The Void?"

Green Day, _Dearly Beloved _

---

While Faja was preaching to the band about who-knows-what, Clara and I were off from the group doing our own style of "interpretive marching". It was a mix between high-step marching and the Macarena. I dubbed it "The _Cool_ Dance". You had to put an emphasize on _cool _because if you didn't it just wasn't The _Cool _Dance.

"Girls, what are you doing?!" We stopped in mid-groove and turned around to see Ms.Dillard and her glutinous self of lard-ness coming towards us. I could almost feel the vibrations from her waddle-clomping. I imagined somewhere at this very moment in some scientific place where there's a Richter scale, some guys in lab coats going crazy about to alert the President that there's an Earthquake coming.

"Sorry Ms.Dillard. We were just going over our drills. We forgot them over the summer." I nodded my head to agree with Clara.

"I don't call this-" Ms.Dillard did some kind of ghetto booty shake that wasn't in The _Cool _Dance and me and Clara stared at her with pitied eyes. "-marching. You girls better straighten up. I remember how you were in middle school, always the class clowns. Grow up." She turned and as she was walking away we held our fingers in front of our faces measuring how big her butt was.

"My fingers don't stretch that far." Clara whined, straining to stretch her thumb and forefinger as far as they would go without snapping a tendon or something.

Faja ordered everyone to go get some water. We officially had fifteen glorious precious minutes to goof off. I grabbed Clara's hand ( again she complained about running giving her rashes ) and we sprinted about looking for the rest of The Secret Society of The Flute Key.

Clara, Erin, Tiffany and I started the society when we were in the sixth grade. No one was allowed in after the ninth grade so it remained us four. We held meetings at Erin's house every Tuesday and Thursday after marching band practice. Today happened to be a Tuesday and I couldn't wait to go. We each had our own club names. No one was allowed to call each other by their first names when the meetings were in session. The Society had rules for everything and a disproportionate amount of infinite inside jokes.

"I see them I see them!" I bounced on my toes as I ran, which was a hard thing to do now that I think about it. Clara was dragged behind me, scratching at her arms with her remaining hand at her rashes. I don't know why running gave Clara rashes, but it always had for as long as I remember.

Erin and Tiffany were in The Secret Society of The Flute Key unofficial water-break spot. They spotted us frolicking towards them. I had Murphy held above my head triumphantly as I bounded across the grass. Clara didn't look too triumphant, she looked more like she wanted to rip a cow's udder off and beat me senseless with it.

I skidded to a halt, released Clara's hand ( she went soaring into the bushes ) and sat down in the grass with Tiffany and Erin. "Clara, quit goofing around and get over here." Tiffany said in the bushes' direction. We heard a little bark and decided to leave her alone.

"What do you guys think about the first day of band camp?" I questioned, crossing my legs and making myself comfortable on the Astroturf. Tiffany held up a hand.

"First before The Secret Society of The Flute Key goes in session, we must do the club chant. I'm sorry, Shea but you're going to have to put Murphy down for a minute."

"Never!" I went into fetal position around him to protect him from the grabby hands of my fellow Society-ers. "He's too young! He'll get lost by himself!"

"Shea..give..me…the water bottle!" Tiffany said through gritted teeth as she tried to pry my fingers away. So I did what my instincts told me to and bit her.

"Auuuhh!" Tiffany released me and stuck her in in her mouth. "She bih meh. She bih meh!" Her eyes filled with tears.

"Oh my gosh you two. I'll say the chant for us." Erin prattled it out in ten seconds. "The Secret Society of The Flute Key so solemnly swears to stay in the club forever until we kick the bucket as old ladies who live with a lot of cats. This does not include comas and/or ruptured spleens. This offer expires March ninth three-thousand and ninty but we should be dead by then. Shea?"

"Here."

"Tiffany?"

"Here."

"Clara?"

The bush rattled. We figured that meant 'present'.

"And myself, Erin. Here and clear as day. SSotFK chant closed." We all clapped three times and said the word 'brick'. I don't know why we chose the word brick that day in sixth grade; no one can remember. I like to think one of us got hit in the head that day or something. It would explain some of our eccentricity. For at least one of us anyway: the other three are just plain bizarre. I liked to think I was one of the three.

I sat there putting little tufts of grass on Murphy out of boredom. Erin cleared her throat.

"The meeting is in session. Who would like to tell about their first day of band camp? Clara, I suggest you get over here and quit playing around. I saw a giraffe go in that bush before you went in it. It was before you and Shea got here."

Clara shot out of the bush like she was running for her life. Clara was scared to _death _of giraffes. She had had a childhood incident. I'm not going to go into it right now.

She stopped running, panted, and sat down beside me. She glared at Erin. "Hey. You tricked me! There wasn't a giraffe in that bush! There was a squirrel though, and I was playing with him." We all stared at Clara and there was an awkward silence. Suddenly I noticed something poking its head out of the bushes.

"Um..Clara, I don't think that was a squirrel you befriended." We all turned around to see a skunk standing three feet away. It was looking at Clara.

"Oh..my god. Clara, only you could befriend a skunk. No body move." Tiffany warned us. The skunk sniffed the air, then started making it was towards me.

"Help me! I'm dead! It's killed me!" I squirmed and thrashed about. It walked right past me and stopped at Clara. I stopped thrashing and stared open-mouthed as Clara started petting it.

"Look, he knows who his mummy is. Aww. What a good…." action censored "….boy." Clara picked him up and sat him in her lap.

"I cannot believe you just looked at a skunk's privates." I shivered.

"I want to name him Bush, because that's where I found him." Clara scratched him behind the ears and his leg kicked like a dog. "Aww lookie!"

Erin hit the ground with her fist. "We are not naming our skunk Bush. I think John suits him better." Erin had democrat blood running through her veins through and through. She was obsessed with politics.

"Does he look like a John to you? What kind of a name is John anyway?" Clara picked him up and held him up to her face so she could look into his eyes. "You're not a John, are you?" He sneezed. "See it upsets his sinuses. His name is Bush."

"Should we initiate him into the Society?" Tiffany asked, sticking out her jaw. She did that lot; it was her biggest habit besides the occasional eye twitching. Her club named used to be "Twitchy Jaw" but she made us change it.

"I guess so. He has as much right to be in the Secret Society as anybody else."

"Wait a second though, Clara. No one has the right, remember? We decided no one gets in. We decided that when we were all freshmen." I felt proud that I had remembered.

"Oh well. Sir Bush/John, we officially .." Tiffany got cut off.

"Wait! We need something to knight him with. Shea, give me your water bottle." Erin grabbed for Murphy but I was too fast.

"Why don't you just use a sword?" I asked, cradling Murphy to my chest. Erin growled.

"Because we're on a football field. Do you see any swords?" We all agreed the field was sword-deprived. I was not going to give up without a fight, so I took off my shoe ( it was a red converse, the we all had signed with a marker ) and handed it to Erin. Erin shrugged.

"This will have to do. Okay Tiffany, you may continue."

"Ahem. Sir Bush/John, we officially knight you a Secret Society of the Flute Key..-er. Hey you guys why didn't we ever make up a name for what someone in the society is called? I'm tired of putting 'er' on the end of everything." She said this as Erin knighted Bush/John with the shoe. He didn't seem to like being prodded with a shoe too much because he made a sound that sounded like a lawnmower.

"I don't know why we never thought of it. You have a good point." I commented, scooting a little bit away from Bush/John. "Why don't we just call ourselves Sky Scrapers?"

"Why?" Everyone asked at once.

"I dunno." That day Bush/John became a Sky Scraper of the Secret Society of the Flute Key.


	3. The Carelessness of Snares

Water break was over as soon as it had begun. We all said our farewells to Bush/John ( he was now our official club mascot ) and got back into formation. I got to stand beside Tiffany because she was a flute player like me. Clara was a trumpet player, and Erin was a tuba player. It kind of matched Erin; she was short and not exactly stick-thin unlike myself. I was a little on the "I look anorexic but I'm not" side. I wasn't anorexic, I was just malnourished.

"Let's take it from the top of the opener." Faja said lightly. He was standing on a podium with a microphone. I stood on the forty yard line and Tiffany was in front of me. I coveted the fifty yard line that was a few feet away. My favorite number was fifty. I could feel the vibe coming from it at my left. My foot itched to stretch out and touch it.

"Don't even think about it, Shea." Said the back of Tiffany's head. I pouted and bit my tongue to hold back the urge. I must have that fifty yard line! It was almost time for our section leader to give us new sets. Please let me have the fifty. Please oh please oh please..

Allison, our tall, blonde, blue-eyed section leader who was pretty as a buttercup came to my side. "Let's see…Shea O'collins…you have.." She flipped through her drill chart with long graceful fingers. "..oh, here you are. Shea, you take the third hash from the sideline on the ten yard line." I stared at her. She had to be kidding. That fifty was laughing me in the face right now.

She started to walk away to tell the next person their set. I hurried after her. I felt like a nerdy little kid whose friends just walked off without me, saying 'Wait up you guys!' as I push up my glasses.

"Allison! There has to be some mistake- I can't march from the forty to ten in one move!" She stopped in her tracks and turned around to face me. The sun in her blue eyes made them a pretty crystal aqua. She smiled at me. She almost looked like an angel the way the sun was hitting her.

"All I can tell you Shea, is you have to book butt." And she turned and walked away. I sighed and returned back to my previous spot where Tiffany was standing kicking at an ant hill.

"Well, I'll be seeing ya, Tiffany. Don't try to call my cell phone or anything because it'll probably be long distance." I turned and walked away leaving her bewildered. As I made my long trip to the ten yard line, I got to see who all I would be walking past to get there every time.

At the moment I was walking over the thirty yard line where the drum line were positioned. Jeb and his twin were goofing off hitting each other with their snare drumsticks. Then they started to have a "sword" fight. "On guard!" Jeb shouted dramatically, pretending to stab his twin Jacob in the stomach.

"I'm wounded! I'm wounded!" Jacob started to wobble as if he were about to fall down. Obviously he wasn't watching where he was wobbling to, because he wobbled right into me.

"Oof!" I jumped and so did my flute- right out of my hands. All the sounds in the world stopped for that one moment, and the only sound was the echo of my flute colliding with a sharp rock.

Jacob stared at me and blinked, then bent down to pick up my flute. "Man, I'm retarded. Sorry." He handed it to me. There was a dent in the head joint. " I can break my drumstick for you if you want." He held it in two hands and prepared to break it over his knee.

"No! It's okay, I can probably get this fixed." I tried to convince him. See, it looks kind of cool actually. The dent is in the shape of a fire hydrant.." I smiled and showed him.

"Hey- you're right. I rock!" I suddenly began to see that Jacob was much different from his brother. Jeb had an actual brain- this guy was brain-deprived.

"Um, yeah. Thanks." I frowned and walked away from him, continuing my trek to the ten yard line. When I finally got there I stood on my spot. Now was a good chance to really look at the damage that Jacob had caused. It wasn't in the shape of a fire hydrant at all. The only shape I saw was a hand shooting a bird and below it written in blood were the words "Screw you, Jacob!" Okay, I know I'm a bit melodramatic, but the guy broke my baby! How would he like for me to put a dent in his_ head_? But with his brains there probably already was one.

"Shea, why do you look so miserable? Your face makes you look like you're constipated." I looked up and saw Clara standing a few feet away. She was with the trumpet section. I was the flute section all by myself. All the rest of the flutes were on the other side of the field and I didn't think Allison had put me in the right spot.

I said nothing but held out my flute to her. She glanced at the head joint. "Anger issues? Don't tell me that came from you hitting somebody!"

"No, no. Jeb's twin Jacob knocked it out of my hands and it hit a rock."

"That's kind of sad and unfortunate, because in my whole life of marching I have not seen a single rock on this football field."

"Well I guess that makes me special doesn't it? I guess today's my lucky day." I was now in a bit of a bad mood. I didn't want to talk anymore so I went into my "don't talk to me" mode. Which pretty much consisted of me crinkling up my nose. I was going for a vicious look. I would get Jacob for his flute-denting non-brain-ish ways of carelessness.


End file.
